the way in which words that seem neutral can acquire positive or negative associations through frequent occurrences with particular collocations. For example, the phrasal verb ‘set in’ co-occurs frequently with nouns that have a negative meaning, giving it a negative semantic prosody.
Synonyms and related words
General grammatical and linguistic terms
cognitive grammar
concordance
conversation analysis
semantic prosody
noun countable linguistics
US /səˌmæntɪk ˈprɑsədi/
Word Forms
singular
semantic prosody
plural
semantic prosodies
DEFINITIONS1
1
the way in which words that seem neutral can acquire positive or negative associations through frequent occurrences with particular collocations. For example, the phrasal verb “set in” co-occurs frequently with nouns that have a negative meaning, giving it a negative semantic prosody.